P r o m o t i n g E n e r g y C o n s c i o u s B e h a v i o u r
169
Energy usage patterns and the daily life of occupants
The data we collected covers the period from 7th, August, 2011 at 1:00am to 2nd of
June, 2012 at 24:00pm, which is 43 weeks/or 301 days in total.
The authors have analysed energy usage patterns of electricity, gas and water at
different time granularities based on days and weeks respectively. In order to provide the
feedbacks to the occupants for achieving the energy conscious behaviours, we have
focused on our study in the following aspects:
•
What are the energy usage patterns during working days and nonworking days
(including public holidays and school holidays)?
•
What are the energy usage patterns during weeks?
•
What are the correlation among electricity, gas and electricity?
•
How to predict energy consumption for future use based on the current use?
Energy usage patterns during working days and non-working days
The house owner is a couple under age 65 with full-time employment jobs. The couple
also has two school-aged children. It is important to understand the energy consumption
during working and non-working days. We have classified the energy data of 301 days
into working days, public holidays (i.e. weekends and bank holidays) and school holidays
and analysed the energy consumption related to the electricity, gas and water, as shown
in Table 1, Table 2 and Table 3. Note that we have pre-processed the data to make the
representation more straightforward and easy to analyse. The values in the table are
relative values rather than absolute values of the energy consumption which are equal to
the relative values times the actual average energy consumption in daily or weekly. The
actual averages of daily energy usage for electricity, water and gas are 19.82kWh,
790.02L and 56.88kWh respectively. The actual averages of weekly energy usage are
138.74kWh, 5530.1L and 398.16kWh.
Table 1 shows the electricity consumption in working days is much less than in public
holidays according to the mean values of working days (0.872) and public holidays
(1.273). The electricity consumption in working days is very close to the one in school
holidays and no significant variation (with the similar standard deviations (Std) as 0.25
and 0.273). This shows either the children were not at home or they only used low power
appliances at the home during school holidays. The maximum consumption of the
electricity across 301 days is on 5th of February, 2012 (Sunday).
Table 2 shows the water consumption. It demonstrates that there is no significant
difference between working days and holidays according to their mean values. During
school holidays, the water usage is about 0.824 times of the average which is equal to 1.
This also reflects that their children were not at home.
From the gas consumption in Table 3, it shows that there is no big difference on whether
it is working days or non-working days. The gas consumption is mainly related to
temperature of the outdoors because energy consumption in winter is higher than other
seasons, especially from December to January. It has no correlation between their
lifestyles and gas consumption. We compared and visualised the electricity, water and
gas consumptions in Figure 1, 2 and 3.
